Etherscope (published by Goodman Games) is a steampunk role-playing game based on the d20 system. It uses the d20 Modern rules.
Setting
The setting is a Steampunk fantasy world in which the fifth Platonic element, Ether (cosmic energy), is discovered and tapped as an energy source. Using their cutting-edge knowledge of this force allows the British empire to flourish and the culture and values of the Victorian Age to be artificially prolonged.
Etherspace Technology
In the 1950s, American inventors created the Etherscope, a "difference engine" that could interact with Etherspace. Etherscopes are hand-crafted by technicians and are therefore prohibitively expensive items that are owned by the rich and powerful. Users vary from upper-class dilettantes to massive government bureaucracies and wealthy corporations.
Enginaughts were originally the trained technicians that created, maintained, programmed, and used "difference engines" (mechanical computers). The term was later extended to the clerks who programmed and used Etherscopes and the workers that fashioned Etherstuff into usable objects or structures.
Cybernaughts are human beings who utilize interface technologies. The simplest representation of the concept are the maimed people who have installed mechanical "limbs" or sensor "eyes" to replace the ones they have lost or sickly people who implant mechanical devices to replace failed or failing internal organs. The more complex concept extends to the interface technologies that allow a user to interact with a system indirectly (via keyboards, consoles, or Etheric gauntlets) or directly (via an Etherjack implant).
Etheric gauntlets allow a person to interact with Etherspace remotely. It is a common method of manipulating and fashioning Etherstuff.
The Etherjack is a cybernautic implant that allows users to interface directly with the Etheric plane (a process called Scope Immersion). Its purchase is unregulated in America but is highly controlled or banned elsewhere.
Etheric avatars are etheric constructs that are created by Etherscope users to represent them in Etherspace. The only limits are a user's skill and imagination - though off-the-rack or custom-made avatars are available from Enginauts.
Etheric Domains, Etherspace constructs resembling sprawling cities, have been created by Etherspace users to perform clerical tasks and consolidate centralized information libraries. They are bounded by security "walls" to keep out intruders. Usually the product of a powerful nation or a rich corporation, informal communities of users have begun to spring up. Haven - a hidden Domain created by Scope Riders - is home to such a community; Havenites often use detailed avatars and use a series of pseudonyms and cover identities when Immersed.
Scope Riders are a sub-culture of self-taught Etherscope users who use the Etherspace for a variety of purposes. Some explore the Domains or uncharted Etherspace for amusement or to sate their curiosity. Others use it to further criminal or political goals by stealing, altering, or even deleting stored information or forging hideouts or communication networks in the Etherscape to avoid the authorities.
System Agents, violent and bizarre etherspace beings, are a major mystery. Some think they are government or corporate Scope Riders hired to police their patron's Domains or hunt down subversives and thieves. Some think they are new programs or etheric constructs that either act on pre-programmed instructions or have even attained sentience. Some think the scope riders themselves subconsciously create them as materializations of their fears and worries or a product of their imaginations running away from them. Others posit that perhaps they were always there in the Etherspace and that the presence of other lifeforms has just drawn their interest.
Recreational use of Scope Tabs, a drug compound that grants the user access to the Etheric realm, have become a common form of escape for both bored workers and jaded aristocrats alike.
What is Etherspace? The exact opinion varies, as nothing is known precisely about it. Scientists conjecture that Ether is the substance between the stars and that Etherspace is a realm of pure energy. Artists and writers say it is the realm of dreams, thoughts, and imagination. Dreamers say it is the magical "faerieland" from folktales, myths, and legends.
History
The world wars of the 20th Century were resolved differently, leaving the British Empire and the European powers largely intact.